Cate Blanchett to Preside at Cannes: 12 out of 71 ain't bad?

Congrats to Cate Blanchett, this years Jury President of Cannes. Blanchett—who incidentally has won a Golden Globe three times out of her nine nominations—will head the jury that selects the winner of 2018’s Canne’s Palme d’Or and the festival’s other main prizes. Blanchett joins a short line of females who have headed the Cannes jury in its 71 year history. Blanchett follows in the footsteps of Olivia de Havilland (the first female to receive the honor in 1965), Sophia Loren in 1966, Michele Morgan—the first woman to receive a Cannes Best Actress Award in 1946—in 1971, Ingrid Bergman (1973), Jeanne Moreau (1975 & 1995), Francoise Sagan (1979), Isabelle Adjani (1997), Isabelle Huppert (1999), Liv Ullmann (2001),  and most recently Jane Campion in 2014. 

Interesting to see that after the appearance of equality in the 1970’s, not a single woman was selected to head the jury in the 1980’s. Similarly there was an awfully big gap between Ullman and Campion’s reigns in the 2000’s. I think women are tired of not being seen, or being seen in only a sexual light, as helpmates and acolytes to the male of the species. 

Blanchett, always a strong voice for womens’ rights, is one of the driving forces behind the Time’s Up movement—a group of women demanding enough is enough and calling for an end to sexual harassment in all areas of a woman’s working world, not just those in the film and television industry but across the board. 

Coincidentally—or not—the festival runs May 8th through May 19th, which just happens to encompass the same weekend that Blanchett’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette? opens here in the U.S. 

Of all the movies based on books coming out in 2018, the adaptation of Maria Semple’s bestselling is probably the one I personally have been waiting most patiently to see.